Taken from a "Statement of Style" I wrote in a creative writing class a year ago. Replace "writing" with "AMVs" and "editing."

I rarely invest much thought into my motivation behind writing. No, my pen hand isn't connected to my lungs. If I stop writing, I will not die. It's not a place to release all of my most inner thoughts. I am not fueled by any blazing passion or desire. Most of my genius thoughts float up to the surface somewhere between “Well, if the Pringles can has cardboard sides and a metal bottom, does that mean it goes with the tin... or the cardboard?” and “Lather. Rinse. Repeat,” when I am nowhere near a convenient pad of paper or keyboard – and I most often allow these thoughts to slip away, maybe to rise up again during a heated debate with a friend.

So to connect this to the thread, I think about editing the most in the shower or when I'm doing similar things completely unrelated to editing - and more often than not, the thought/idea flies away before I can pin it down.

Music, because I can listen to it passively. I can't really passively watch TV. I can't even picture what passively watching something would be like - it'd be too similar to not watching something to really tell the difference.

I can also end up getting a song stuck in my head easily, so it's like it's always kinda there, playing back.

BasharOfTheAges wrote:I can't even picture what passively watching something would be like - it'd be too similar to not watching something to really tell the difference.

I watch TV shows/movies on my second monitor (which is at a 45 degree angle) while I'm doing other things on my main one. I can hear it and see it in my peripheral vision, so I know what's happening without it needing my full attention. I'm doing it right now, actually.

BasharOfTheAges wrote:I can't even picture what passively watching something would be like - it'd be too similar to not watching something to really tell the difference.

I watch TV shows/movies on my second monitor (which is at a 45 degree angle) while I'm doing other things on my main one. I can hear it and see it in my peripheral vision, so I know what's happening without it needing my full attention. I'm doing it right now, actually.

It's probably just me. If I'm not paying attention to something (well enough to be quizzed on it afterwards), I don't feel like I'm watching it... the weird thing is, I can pay attention to music AND do another thing at once.

Ideas pop into my head either when I'm listening to music while doing something manual (when I play games once in a while I don't usually even know what song is currently playing) or when I'm watching anime. I try to connect those two and find as many ideas and scenes in my head as possible

While a movie will often put me in the mood to edit (or write depending) it's music that generally inspires me to edit, creates new ides, or surfaces old ideas and memories. The music influences my mood as well, which alters the kind of videos I am in the mood to work on.